Kazuo Ishiguro, a British novelist and recipient of both the Booker Prize (1989) and Nobel Prize in Literature (2017), is renowned for exploring the fragile boundaries between memory and imagination.
This ten week SDG examines how Ishiguro’s understated prose reveals profound moral reflection and quiet emotional depth.
We will read three of his novels—A Pale View of Hills (his debut, exploring the unreliability of memory, trauma, and self deception); The Buried Giant (a post Arthurian meditation on forgetting and forgiveness); and The Remains of the Day (a poignant study of duty, purpose, and self worth).
In addition, we will view the film Living, for which Ishiguro was the Oscar nominated screenwriter, and sample his short story collection Nocturnes.
Join us in discussing Ishiguro’s haunting vision of what it means to remember, to serve, and, ultimately, to live.
Week 1: A Pale View of the Hills: Part 1
Week 2: A Pale View of the Hills: Part 2
Week 3: The Buried Giant: Part 1
Week 4: The Buried Giant: Part 2
Week 5: The Buried Giant: Part 3
Week 6: Living
Week 7: Nocturns: Come Rain or Shine; & Malvern Hills
Week 8: Remains of the Day: Prologue & Chapter 1, Chapter 2 through p 76
Week 9: Remains of the Day: Chapter 2 from p77, Chapters 3&4
Week 10: Remains of the Day: Chapters 5-7
Kazuo Ishiguro, A Pale View of the Hills, First Vintage International Edition (Penguin Random House) 1982
Kazuo Ishigura, The Buried Giant, First Vintage International Edition (Penguin Random House) 2016
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day, Vintage International (Random House) 1990
Kazuo Ishiguro, Nocturnes, Vintage International (Penguin Random House) 2010
Film: Living, Released Dec 23, 2022